Release Courtesy of Matt Higgins – MIAC Assistant Executive Director
The Gustavus women’s swimming and diving team hosted the Grace Goblirsch Memorial Invitational over the weekend to honor the memory of a former teammate who passed away in 2013. The Gusties – and senior Jennifer Strom – certainly rose to the special occasion with a tremendous performance to finish first as a team. Strom won three individual events and added another first-place relay finish while breaking two pool records in the process. For her performance, the MIAC sports information directors honored Strom Tuesday with the MIAC Women’s Swimming and Diving Athlete-of-the-Week award.
Strom’s winning time of 2:24.83 in the 200-yard breaststroke broke the Gustavus Vic Gustafson Pool record of 2:25.12, which was set in 2009 by Carleton’s Kate Alexander, and Strom also helped the Gusties’ 200-yard medley relay team swim to victory with a pool-record time of 1:48.53. The previous record of 1:49.21 was set by St. Thomas in 2013. Strom also won the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:07.32, and the 500-yard freestyle in 5:19.45 as Gustavus amassed 1,694 points to finish first by more than 700 points. This season, Strom’s times rank first in the MIAC in the 100-breast and 200-breast, and second in the 500-free, and the Gustie 200-medley relay team is also ranked No. 1 in the league.
Thanks to Saturday’s first-place finish, Gustavus continued its perfect start. The team has now finished first in each of its first three invitationals and won both of its dual meets thus far in 2014-15. The team will try to continue its incredible start on Dec. 5-6, when it travels to Minneapolis, Minn., to complete in the University of Minnesota’s Jean Freeman Invitational. That will be the Gusties final competition in 2014, as they will embark on a training trip to Puerto Rico on Dec. 27.